Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Brooklyn Pilsner, bottle

From everything I've ever read about it, Brooklyn is the most rugged, edgy, lively, depressing, poor, wealthy, artistic, soulless, white, black, phony, and authentic place on earth. My impressions may be completely wrong, though; I've never actually been there, and I assume I never will. People like me, i.e. suburbanites, are best off staying away from cities; it's obvious we don't belong and just risk embarrassing ourselves. And I really don't like to embarrass myself.

Whenever I have a beer from such an unattainable place, I expect mysticism. I expect cool factor. I expect it to make me resent my usual cretin swill and want to leave the farm for good. I expect to feel shame.

Brooklyn Pilsner probably falls in the German pilsner category. It's less grainy and more bitter than the popular brands and just a touch sweet (honey). The hops are more green matter than dead matter and some citrusy, which I'd actually place closer to lime than the typical grapefruit notes. The aroma's fine but weak and unimportant; it's a pilsner. The feel is dry as you'd expect. It did finish a little tinny on a few sips, but I wouldn't read too much into this--I'm not sure how clean the glass really was :-/

Grade: L, for lacking mysticism. Off hand, it reminded me a little of Lagunitas Pils but not quite as good. It left me pleased but not ashamed. And really, the price point to buy it here in flyover country is probably too high to be a worthy purchase except to sample it once.

BONUS: While we're on the subject of Brooklyn, via the Infra Blog, here's another happy reminder that our infrastructure--nay, our entire standard of living--is literally crumbling down around us. If you can't get in the mood to drink, this might help: